PCL1 Nashville Sounds

House Slams Sounds Past RedHawks

April 27, 2004 - Pacific Coast League (PCL1)
Nashville Sounds News Release


NASHVILLE -- Catcher J.R. House hit his second grand slam in his last six games played to propel the Nashville Sounds to a 5-3 victory over the Oklahoma RedHawks in front of 8,272 fans on a beautiful Tuesday morning at Greer Stadium.

Children dominated the large crowd; 5,004 members of the Sounds Reading Club attended the game on a free ticket as a reward for accomplishing their reading goals.

With the victory, the 9-10 Sounds recorded a three-games-to-one series victory against Oklahoma and finished with a winning homestand (5-3). Nashville has won five of its last six games, all in come-from-behind fashion.

House, who leads Nashville with 17 RBI, became the fourth Sounds player in the franchise's 27-year history to belt two grand slams in a season and the first since Chris Snopek in 1995. He also extended the Sounds' streak of games with at least one home run to 15 contests.

Oklahoma broke a scoreless tie in the top of the sixth inning on a wind-blown two-run homer by rightfielder Jason Conti. Ramon Nivar had led off the frame with a single before scoring on Conti's first roundtripper of the season, which came against Nashville starter Cory Stewart.

The Sounds offense erupted in typical come-from-behind fashion with a five-run sixth to grab a 5-2 lead, highlighted by House's two-out grand slam. Terry Shumpert reached on a fielder's choice and moved to third on a Daryle Ward single to chase Oklahoma starter Nick Regilio. Chris Truby greeted reliever Rosman Garcia by ripping an RBI double to the right-center gap to cut the lead to 2-1.

Oklahoma manager Bobby Jones chose to intentionally walk Andy Abad to load the bases and get to House, who made the RedHawks skipper pay by belting Garcia's 3-1 offering high off the guitar-shaped scoreboard in left-center for his fifth homer of the year.

The RedHawks rallied to plate a run on David Newhan's RBI single against Sounds reliever Juan Acevedo in the top of the seventh, closing the Nashville lead to 5-3.

Stewart (2-0) picked up the victory after allowing two runs in his six innings of work. Garcia (0-3) was issued the loss after surrendering House's grand slam. Mark Corey came on to record the final four outs for his fourth save of the season.

The Sounds join the entire Pacific Coast League with an off day on Wednesday before traveling to New Orleans to continue PCL Eastern Division play against the Zephyrs with a four-game series beginning on Thursday. Nashville won the 2003 season series between the clubs by an 11-5 margin.

Left-hander Sean Burnett (1-0, 1.93) will start Thursday's opener for the Sounds and face New Orleans knuckleballer Jared Fernandez (0-0, 0.56). Baseball returns to Greer Stadium next Monday when the Sounds open a four-game homestand against the cross-state rival Memphis Redbirds.

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Pacific Coast League Stories from April 27, 2004


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